Nothing in Particular

Abstract The book is about nothing(ness). It argues that it is a dialetheic object, both something and nothing. (This is called ‘the paradox of nothing’.) To establish this, the tools of mereology are employed. Nothing is defined as the fusion of no things. It is shown that this definition is equivalent to being the mereological complement (that is, the absence) of everything. The book argues that, in virtue of not being an object, nothing is ineffable—but in a paradoxical way, since it is effable too. It also argues that, in a sense made clear, nothing is the ground of reality. To be an object is to “rise above” nothing. In the process of all this, the book discusses, many aspects of: noneism, absences, intentionality, paradoxes of self-reference, metaphysical dependence, gluon theory, and identity. Finally, the book relates all these matters to the philosophies of Wang Bi (Daoism), Meister Eckhart (God), Hegel (dialectic), Sartre (freedom), Heidegger (being and nothing), and Nishida (basho and absolute nothingness). Throughout the book, the tools of formal logic and mereology are employed to show that the contradictions generated by the theory of nothing are under tight control, not spreading into more mundane areas.